The Negro press distinguished
itself during
World War II, both on the frontline and the home
front. It was virtually the
only public source where Negroes could read of their own war exploits.

Among
those Negro newspapers covering World
War II with its own personnel was The Afro-American. Its overseas
correspondents included Max Johnson, Vincent Tubbs, Art Carter, Elizabeth M.
Phillips, Herbert M. Frisby and Ollie Stewart. Below is an excerpt of one of
Stewart's articles, under the subhead "Normandy Beachhead," written
after the 1944 D-Day invasion of the French beaches of Normandy by the Allies.

The
excerpt is taken from "This Is Our
War," a collection of AFRO World
War II articles the company
self-published in 1945. For more information on the AFRO and World War II,
check the AFRO's Website
at www.afroam.org.

***

Stories of heroic deeds by Colored
troops
have come to me from every angle since my arrival on a Normandy beachhead
exactly one month after departure from the U.S.A.

Leaving from England, Colored soldiers
loaded
us on a boat, other accompanied us over, and still others unloaded us and much
equipment on the beach they helped win from the enemy during the first few days
of the invasion.

I am writing this beneath an apple
tree by
the roadside, with fat cattle grazing nearby, unmindful of the trucks rushing
to the front with men and supplies, of the incessant pounding of artillery not
far up the road.

All
last night, guns shook the ground on
which I slept. Our Long Toms slugged it out with German 88's in a duel that has
no end.

I am staying with a quartermaster
outfit
whose medical officer is Capt. Charles I. West of Washington, brother of Maj.
John B. West. In the next tent is Warrant Officer Vincent Piedra of New York.

Another unit has among its personnel
Cpl.
John Hawkins of Pine Bluff, Ark., who shot down a German plane on D-Day while
landing under fire with a trucking company. Hawkins used a 50-calibre machine
gun mounted on the truck to down the raider, which was attempting to strafe a
troop concentration.

The Nazi pilot bailed out and was
later
captured.

Pvt. George McClain, 2263 E. 95th
Street,
Cleveland, Ohio, helped captures a German on D-Day soon after landing. The same
day he went to the front before he knew it--driving a load of infantrymen up
the road into a town still held by the Germans, but he made a quick turn and
fled under fire by both sides.

Everywhere I go are tales of our
lads who
waded ashore in water up to their necks, with their trucks waterproofed, to
take part in the assault that forced Jerry [ apparently Allied slang for the
German soldier] from his strong points.

Many
are still saying, "I don't know how we did it, after seeing how Jerry was
dug in." All along the beach were concrete pillboxes, barbed wire and gun
emplacements.

"The
history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,--this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge
his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost.
He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach
his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He
simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit
upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face." - W. E. B. Du Bois,
The Souls of Black Folk